


Self-reflection

by monaboyd_archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Angst, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Post-Filming Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-02-28
Updated: 2004-02-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 18:22:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4446878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monaboyd_archivist/pseuds/monaboyd_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy is being worn down by the awards circuit, and has finally had enough at the NME awards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Self-reflection

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Shirasade: this story was originally archived at the Monaboyd.net Archive, which was closed in September 2014 due to software issues and a lack of new submissions for several years . To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in October 2014. I e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact me using the e-mail address on the Monaboyd.net Archive collection profile.

Fic: Self-reflection (1/1, R)

Title: Self-reflection  
Author: leopardskinqueen (l_s_q@livejournal.com  
Website: http://l-s-q.livejournal.com  
Rating: hard R  
Pairing: Billy Boyd/Dominic Monaghan  
Warnings: RPS, some swearing, angst.  
Disclaimer: Never happened. All in my head.  
Summary: Mainly inspired by [this picture](http://img16.photobucket.com/albums/v47/leopardskinqueen/nme1.jpg). Billy is being worn down by the awards circuit, and has finally had enough at the NME awards. Slightly AU, as his girlfriend was with him, but I'd started the fic before pictures of her there came out.

A/N: This fic was, for some reason, a nightmare to write. I'd like to thank sunsetmog for her help and encouragement, as always.

 

Billy was starting to hate these awards ceremonies.

And the after parties.

An after party was where he currently was- he was tired, he was sick of being photographed, he was sick of making acceptance speeches. Yes, he was glad the film was doing so well, and happy for everyone involved that they were winning so many awards. He’d just had enough of being the one to collect them. The same speech, essentially, over and over again, the same stupid questions from reporters over and over again, somewhere along the line picking up some tacky plastic statue of increasing stupidity. The same mask of the happy, enjoying himself Billy. It was bloody monotonous, and he was bloody sick of it. Someone else could pick up the bloody awards in future. This was the last one he was doing, he swore to himself. They were getting in the way of his life- he had no time to spend with his friends, he had no time to spend on his own, relaxing, he had no time to go off somewhere on holiday.

He had no time to spend with Dom.

Just as he thought that, his mask slipped for a moment, and his tiredness and general miserableness slipped through. It was just for a moment, and he quickly pulled himself together, but he decided to get out of here as quickly as he could, just in case. He’d picked up the award and shown his face at the party anyway. That was all he was required to do, after all- smile, gush over some ludicrous piece of tat, smile some more, stand in front of the photographers, and feel slowly like he was losing track of where he finished and the endless photographs began, a sensation of the real him being lost, and nothing but empty images remaining. Well, he’d done that, and now he was leaving.

Outside, he hailed a taxi, and sat slumped in the back, in that slightly alcoholic place that wasn't completely paralytic, but was heading towards morose and slightly pissed.

This particular state of alcoholism was always a bad place to be in when you were tired and depressed already.

He closed his eyes, feeling a wave of emptiness wash over him. He tried to work out what time it was in LA, but the combination of tiredness, a slight headache and the drink made this an almost impossible task. After losing count for the eighth time, he decided just to phone Dom anyway when he got back to his room, and screw the time. He needed someone to talk to, and he really wanted that someone to be Dom. He sighed, put his hands over his eyes, which were still shut, and decided to use the rest of the drive to wallow in his own misery.

There was something about sitting in the back of a taxi on the way back from a night out, and in particular a terrible night out, ignoring the ramble from the driver about who they’d had in the back of that very taxi in 1987, that was incredibly depressing. It always had a slight sense of unreality, of displacement, probably caused by the alcohol, which added to the depressive mood.

He slumped further in his seat, hands still over his eyes, too apathetic to even wish the journey would finish quickly.

Eventually, the taxi pulled up outside his hotel. Billy had no idea how long he had been in the taxi for, but it felt like hours. He shoved some large amount of money in the direction of the driver, beyond caring about his change, and stumbled out onto the street, into the most depressing kind of rain- that horrible. miserable drizzle that soaks you to the bone quickly, while being completely lifeless- better a heavy rain and wild gales, which felt alive and full of energy, than this deadening, depressing drizzle, he thought to himself.

He sighed again, hunched his shoulders up in a futile attempt to shelter himself, and walked into the hotel.

Hotels late at night had the same weird feel to late night taxi drives, Billy decided, as he walked to the lift. The emptiness of the normally bustling reception area, which contained just himself and a night porter, who peered at him suspiciously over his copy of the Daily Mail, felt somehow unreal. He waved his key at him and walked slowly on, still getting the porter’s distrustful stare aimed at his back.

When he finally made it to the lift, he pressed the button for his floor, and then leaned heavily against the side, closing his eyes. The fluorescent light of the lift flickered slightly, aggravating his headache. God, what an awful night. He just wanted to get out of these clothes, which stank of stale smoke and spilt beer, and talk to Dom. Finally, the lift shuddered to a stop on his floor, and he walked out into the dimly lit corridor.

Making his way in the semidarkness cautiously, unsure of exactly where his room was, he peered at the barely visible room numbers. Eventually finding his room, he fumbled with the lock for a few minutes, then stumbled into the room, locking the door behind him, and throwing the keys onto the bedside cabinet, and flicking on the lamp.

Like all hotel rooms, it was soul-crushingly bland, without any distinguishing feature. Slightly off-white walls, slightly off-white bed linen, basic pine furniture, full-length mirror- exactly like millions of hotel rooms.

Running his hands through his hair, Billy sighed yet again, and decided to get these bloody clothes off before giving Dom a call. He threw his jacket onto the bed, and then, unbuttoning his shirt, he glanced at himself in the mirror. His tiredness was obvious- he looked bloody awful. There were dark circles under his eyes, contrasting with the pale, drawn skin of the rest of his face.

Turning away from the mirror- realising he looked like shite wasn’t doing much for his already crappy mood- he finished unbuttoning his shirt, and threw it onto the chair. Sitting down on the bed to take off his shoes, he studiously avoided looking in the mirror again-from the bed, all he could see was his own reflection. After getting his shoes off, he hastily stood up, got out of his trousers, and flung them on top of his shirt. Lying down on the bed, he reached for the phone to call Dom. Glancing at the clock, which proclaimed that it was fourteen minutes past twelve, Billy again attempted to work out the time where Dom was. He failed again, but he knew Dom never minded him ringing at insane times.

Punching Dom’s number into the phone, he hoped that Dom would be in, and the one who answered- he didn’t want anyone else to know the strain was getting him down, not even Elijah. The phone rang twice, then a voice answered with a distracted sounding “Hello?”.

It was Dom.

“Dom, it’s me. What time is it over there? Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” He tried to sound normal, but he knew his exhaustion and low spirits were obvious in his voice, and especially to Dom. He knew him too well.

“No, it’s only half four. I was just watching videos, and you know I’m never too busy to talk to you. Are you all right, Billy? You don’t sound too good.” Dom sounded slightly concerned.

“Sodding awards crap. I’m sick of it, Dom, it’s wearing me down. I can’t take much more of it. Thank God it’s nearly over, I cant be fucked with this anymore!”

He bitched about his rubbish night at Dom for a while, and Dom was suitably sympathetic. He should have felt the tension of the evening lift. But it didn’t happen. The conversation with Dom wasn’t having the therapeutic effect it normally did, and the feeling of emptiness was still with him. He glanced at himself in the mirror, and he was still pale, with shadows under his eyes, and his eyes stared back at him blankly.

Now his self-pitying ranting was over, Dom was purring down the phone in a deliberately seductive way.

“Someone sounds like they could do with some relaxation,” Dom breathed down the phone, teasingly.

Billy looked at himself in the mirror. He seemed somehow disconnected from his body, from what he was doing, and watched his reflection impassively as he removed his boxers, and obeyed Dom’s requests, as if it was all happening to someone else.

And as he watched himself wanking, with expressionless face and empty eyes, for a moment he couldn’t tell which was reflected image and what was real.

He mustn’t have lasted long, but he couldn’t tell for sure. He snapped back to reality to hear Dom whispering “Now, get some sleep. Ring me in the morning.”

Wiping his hand off dispassionately on the sheets, he turned off the bedside lamp. In the darkness, he glanced again at the mirror, seeing nothing of himself but a vague shadow.

And somehow, that seemed the most accurate image of all.


End file.
